Sexual Assault Casework

Sexual assault kit (SAK) samples are among the most difficult sample types encountered by many forensic laboratories. Samples collected from female victims may contain very low amounts of male DNA mixed with high amounts of female DNA. It is critical to be able to quickly and accurately assess whether swab evidence from an SAK contains a male contributor before labor-intensive differential extraction procedures are performed.

Legislation requiring the submission of unsubmitted cases and specifying turnaround times will lead to an unprecedented increase in the number of SAKs submitted to laboratories, necessitating speedy processing to prevent backlogs.

Generate quality results with confidence

Our 6-dye chemistries of the Applied Biosystems™ QuantiFiler™ Trio, GlobalFiler™, and Yfiler™ Plus kits provide a compatible workflow to help maximize information generated on each sample, the first time through the workflow.

Customer studies have demonstrated the ability of the QuantiFiler Trio DNA Quantification Kit to accurately predict degradation in downstream results using the GlobalFiler PCR Amplification kits. This allows laboratories to adjust input amounts to improve allele recovery. Accurate and sensitive detection of male DNA enabled by the QuantiFiler Trio allows the Yfiler Plus PCR Amplification Kit to be selected in cases of low male:female DNA ratio (M:F<1:20) where an autosomal kit would have little value.

Franz Neuhuber

Watch the video to hear Dr. Franz Neuhuber, Head of Forensic Molecular Biology Department at University of Salzburg, Austria share details of an attempted rape case that prompted his lab to adopt Y-STR analysis.